Nurse Helen Fairchild, RN was born on the 21st. November 1885 in Turbot Township, Milton, in central Pennsylvania and graduated as a nurse from Pennsylvania Hospital in 1913. One month after America declared war on April 6th. 1917, Helen volunteered to go overseas with 63 other nurses from Pennsylvania Hospital. She was assigned to duty as a Nurse on the 7th. May 1917 and nursed in Flanders during the Battle of Passchendaele (3rd. Ypres).

She had a history of abdominal pain after meals before she left for France and during November 1917 she suffered from a recurrence. By Christmas she was vomiting after every meal and a Barium meal X-Ray revealed a large gastric ulcer obstructing her pylorus. She underwent a gastro-enterostomy operation for the pyloric obstruction on the 13th. January 1918. Initially she did well but she became jaundiced on the third day postoperatively and deteriorated rapidly, dying in a coma at 11.20 AM on the 18th. January 1918.

Edith Bolling Galt Wilson (1872-1961) received much more public acclaim for her activities during World War I. Rationing became a major part of life in America, so Edith put the White House on a budget. American citizens observed different days of rationing during the week, including heatless, meatless, wheatless, and gasless days. Edith received the media nickname “the shepherdess” after she purchased a flock of sheep that grazed on the White House lawn. When the wool was sheared, she donated the proceeds to the Red Cross. Her dedication to the Red Cross included a White House unit where White House employees, friends, and family sewed a variety of clothing for the soldiers.

Yeoman (F) was a rank in the U.S. Naval Reserve in World War I. The first Yeoman (F) was Loretta Perfectus Walsh. At the time, the women were popularly referred to as "yeomanettes" or even "yeowomen", although the official designation was Yeoman (F).[1]

In March 1917, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels realized that the Naval Reserve Act of 1916 used the word "yeoman" instead of "man" or "male", and allowed for the induction of "all persons who may be capable of performing special useful service for coastal defense." He began enlisting females as Yeoman (F), and in less than a month the Navy officially swore in the first female sailor in U.S. history.[2]

Typically, female Yeoman reservists performed clerical duties such as typing, stenography, bookkeeping, accounting, inventory control, and telephone operation. A few became radio operators, electricians, draftsmen, pharmacists, photographers, telegraphers, fingerprint experts, chemists, torpedo assemblers and camouflage designers. Female Yeomen did not attend boot camp. A large number were stationed in Washington, D.C., while others served in naval stations, hospitals, shipyards[3] and munitions factories around the country. Many recruiting stations employed the women who volunteered there as very effective recruiters, and as many as forty women served in England, France, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Canal Zone, Guam, and the Territory of Hawaii.[4]

Without new technologies, the Navy would never have had enough jobs to employ 11,274 female Yeomen. Also, having women in uniform was a positive image for the Navy to project. As well as their many military duties, the women were taught to march and drill at public rallies, recruiting campaigns, war bond drives, and troop send-offs.

The military's first enlisted women

Women had served in the United States military before. In 1901 a female Nurse Corps was established in the Army Medical Department, and in 1907 a Navy Nurse Corps was established. However, despite their uniforms the nurses were civilian employees with few benefits. They slowly gained additional privileges, including "relative ranks" and insignia in 1920, a retirement pension in 1926, and a disability pension if injured in the line of duty in 1926. Edith Nourse Rogers, one of the first women to serve in Congress, voted to support the pensions.[5]

The first American women enlisted into the regular armed forces were 13,000 women admitted into active duty in the Navy and Marines during World War I, and a much smaller number admitted into the Coast Guard. The Yeoman (F) recruits and women Marines primarily served in clerical positions. They received the same benefits and responsibilities as men, including identical pay (US$28.75 per month), and were treated as veterans after the war. These women were quickly demobilized when hostilities ceased, and aside from the Nurse Corps the soldiery became once again exclusively male.[6]

Two uniforms were prescribed for women in the USNRF. A winter uniform of navy blue serge alternated with a summer uniform of white drill. Both consisted of a single-breasted Norfolk style coat with gilt buttons and a rating badge on the left sleeve, worn over a skirt of the same fabric and shirt waist. The coat had patch pockets on each hip and a belt. The skirt was hemmed to four inches above the ankle, and the shirt waist was designed to be worn either open at the neck or buttoned. Hats were to be flat-brimmed sailor hats of navy blue felt or straw.[7] Shoes, hose, gloves and a standard Navy neckerchief completed the outfit. Capes were also prescribed for cold weather.[8]

Bids on the contract for the new uniforms closed on June 18, 1917. The first woman, Loretta Perfectus Walsh, had enlisted in March 1917, with no uniform specified, so various uniforms had been devised from interpretations of existing men's uniforms. Local adaptations were also made to accommodate those working in non-clerical jobs.[4]

Post-WWI

Initially offered general discharges, the women veterans successfully lobbied for honorable discharges in recognition of their service. Many continued in government service as civilians. Women veterans joined the newly created American Legion in large numbers, forming posts that were all female or overwhelmingly female in larger cities or joining "mixed" units in other areas.

The National Yeoman (F) Association began in 1926 and was chartered in 1936 under Title 36 of the United States Code with Public Law 676-74.[9]

By 1914 nearly 5.9 million were working out of the 23.8 million females in Britain.

In World War I, for example, thousands of women worked in munitions factories, offices and large hangars used to build aircraft. Women were also involved in knitting socks and preparing hampers for the soldiers on the front, as well as other voluntary work, but as a matter of survival women had to work for paid employment for the sake of their families. Nursing became the one and only area of female contribution that involved being at the front and experiencing the horror of war.

Not only did they have to keep ‘the home fires burning’ but they took on voluntary and paid employment that was diverse in scope and showed that women were highly capable in diverse fields of endeavor. There is little doubt that this expanded view of the role of women in society did change the outlook of what women could do and their place in the workforce. However the extent of this change is open to historical debate.

The role of women tended to differ in scope and importance between World War I and World War II.

Many women worked as volunteers serving at Red Cross and encouraging the sale of bonds and the planting of "victory gardens".

In part because of female participation in the war effort Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and a number of European countries extended suffrage to women in the years after the First World War.

Munitions Wages - "Earning high wages? Yes, Five quid a week A woman, too, mind you, I calls it dim sweet. Ye'are asking some questions - But bless yer, here goes. I spends the whole racket On good times and clothes. Me saving? Eilydh! Yer do think I'm mad. I'm acting the lady, But - I ain't living bad. I'm having life's good times. See 'ere, it's like this The 'oof come o' danger A touch and go bizz. We're all here today, mate Tomorrow - perhaps dead, If fate tumbles on us And blows up our shed. Afraid! Are yer kidding? With money to spend! Years back I wore tatters, Now - silk stockings mi friend! I've bracelets and jewellery, Rings envied by friends, A sergeant to swank with, And something to lend. I drive out in taxis, Do theatres in style. And this is mi verdict - It is jolly worthwhile. Worthwhile, for tomorrow If I'm blown to the sky, I'll have repaid mi wages In death - and pass by." (Munitions Worker, Dornock Munitions Factory).

Devil's Porridge Exhibit
During the early stages of the First World War the crisis in munitions shortage was quickly realised and acted upon under the hand of Lloyd George who was made Minister for Munitions and charged with sorting the problem. A site was looked for to house a huge cordite making munitions factory, and Eastriggs to the west of Gretna Green seemed the perfect Green Field site - it was shadowed by a number of hills (Cumbrian Mountains, the Pennines and the Cheviots) so had good cloud cover to deter attack. The area also benefited from a good railway service, little other industrial development and those in command knew there would be a huge pool of workers both locally and further afield around Scotland.

The Dornock Munitions Factory was built at Gretna in 1915 and it stretched from Dornock across Eastriggs and Gretna to Longtown. Many of the 30,000 migrant worker that came to do the dangerous work at Dornock Munitions Factory were women - as the poem above reflects, the higher wages for working here were a big pull. Many of these working class women had been in domestic service - earning five pounds a week making munitions would have far exceeded wages in domestic service and other factory work.

Journalist and feminist Rebecca West visited the HM Factory Gretna in 1916 and wrote an article - The Cordite Makers. In it she give details on the long hours worked and dangers, but it's clear that women workers here wanted the long hours to earn the extra money, "Every morning at six, ... 250 of these girls are fetched by a light railway from their barracks on a hill two miles away. When I visited the works they had already been at work for nine hours, and would work for three more. This twelve-hour shift is longer than one would wish, but it is not possible to introduce three shifts, since the girls would find an eight-hour day too light and would complain of being debarred from the opportunity of making more money; (Rebecca West, 1916).

World War 1 Weapons Production
"There was a Danger Inspector came to see the engine houses every now and again, to see if we were all right I remember once a girl was killed in the factory at the acid point. When the girl was killed I was on the day shift and I was in bed at home in Annan. We heard the explosion all the way from there .. we went outside the door and could see the flames rising all the way from Annan. They said that dirt had gotten into the gun-cotton and that was what caused it. The girl who was killed was a charge hand, she got all her girls out, and she was last to come out, and she was caught, she was the only one killed". (Mary Ellen Hind, Munitions worker at Dornock from 1916).

Various parts of the Gretna munitions complex produced different materials - separated deliberately to reduce the likelihood of explosions. The western part of the factory at Dornock covering 1203 acres produced nitric and sulphuric acids, nitroglycerine and gun cotton. The nearby township of Eastriggs emerged to serve this part of the factory. It was at Dornock that nitroglycerine and nitro-cotton were mixed together by mostly women workers to produce the cordite paste. This cordite paste was then shifted to the Mossband area where mineral jelly was added, then it was gelatinous with the use of alcohol and ether serving as solvents. It was then shaped into cords and dried in stoves. Cordite was the final product then packed into cartridge cases of artillery ammunition. When Cordite is fired it burns profusely giving off gases which fire shells from guns.

It was the mix of nitroglycerine with gun-cotton, kneaded together into what was referred to as a kind of 'Devil's Porridge'. This was a particular danger point as the slightest introduction of heat during this process could cause an explosion. Mary Ellen Hind talks about having to watch the temperature, "Well we sat watching the temperature and we had to get up every half hour and see what the temperature was. If it was too high we had to open the door and put a wedge in it, to cool down the building, if it was the opposite then we had to close it".

Uniforms worn by munitions workers were fireproof and with protective soft footwear (such as wellingtons). Explosions did happen and women were badly injured and some died. It was dangerous work, with another danger point being the fumes given off by the ether and alcohol solvents. Rebecca West highlighted in her post-visit article that '...there is the cold fact that they face more danger every day than any soldier on home defence ..The girls who take up this work sacrifice almost as much as men who enlist; for although they make on average 30s a week they are working much harder than most of them, particularly the large number who were formerly domestic servants, would ever have dreamed of working in peacetime".

World War 1 Weapons Production
"There was a Danger Inspector came to see the engine houses every now and again, to see if we were all right I remember once a girl was killed in the factory at the acid point. When the girl was killed I was on the day shift and I was in bed at home in Annan. We heard the explosion all the way from there .. we went outside the door and could see the flames rising all the way from Annan. They said that dirt had gotten into the gun-cotton and that was what caused it. The girl who was killed was a charge hand, she got all her girls out, and she was last to come out, and she was caught, she was the only one killed". (Mary Ellen Hind, Munitions worker at Dornock from 1916).

Various parts of the Gretna munitions complex produced different materials - separated deliberately to reduce the likelihood of explosions. The western part of the factory at Dornock covering 1203 acres produced nitric and sulphuric acids, nitroglycerine and gun cotton. The nearby township of Eastriggs emerged to serve this part of the factory. It was at Dornock that nitroglycerine and nitro-cotton were mixed together by mostly women workers to produce the cordite paste. This cordite paste was then shifted to the Mossband area where mineral jelly was added, then it was gelatinous with the use of alcohol and ether serving as solvents. It was then shaped into cords and dried in stoves. Cordite was the final product then packed into cartridge cases of artillery ammunition. When Cordite is fired it burns profusely giving off gases which fire shells from guns.

It was the mix of nitroglycerine with gun-cotton, kneaded together into what was referred to as a kind of 'Devil's Porridge'. This was a particular danger point as the slightest introduction of heat during this process could cause an explosion. Mary Ellen Hind talks about having to watch the temperature, "Well we sat watching the temperature and we had to get up every half hour and see what the temperature was. If it was too high we had to open the door and put a wedge in it, to cool down the building, if it was the opposite then we had to close it".

Uniforms worn by munitions workers were fireproof and with protective soft footwear (such as wellingtons). Explosions did happen and women were badly injured and some died. It was dangerous work, with another danger point being the fumes given off by the ether and alcohol solvents. Rebecca West highlighted in her post-visit article that '...there is the cold fact that they face more danger every day than any soldier on home defence ..The girls who take up this work sacrifice almost as much as men who enlist; for although they make on average 30s a week they are working much harder than most of them, particularly the large number who were formerly domestic servants, would ever have dreamed of working in peacetime".

HM Factory, Gretna (His Majesty's Factory), was a World War I munitions factory located in Southern Scotland next to the Solway Firth, Dumfries and Galloway. Described as "the biggest factory in the world", it was 9 miles long, 2 miles wide, and stretched from Eastriggs in the west, past Gretna and across the Scottish/English border to Longtown in the east.

The site was chosen for its remoteness from populated areas, but good access for services and supplies, which still holds true for a number of military facilities located in the surrounding area today. It would also prove difficult for the Luftwaffe to reach, and the area itself provided natural cover, with the sea air and mist from the surrounding hills combining to obscure the site from the air.

Codename Moorside, the factory was built to produce Cordite for the British Army in response to a shortage of shells on The Front. As early as 1915, British and Allied troops were reported to be suffering enormous losses as their artillery was starved of ammunition, while their adversaries had no such problems. Although the Allies had the artillery to support their operations, its Cordite propellant was in short supply, the reserves of acetone required for its production were simply not available. Acetone was produced by distillation from wood, itself a limited resource, and also in demand. The breakthrough came when a process for producing acetone by fermentation, previously considered to be of little value, was scaled up and used to replace the wood distillation process, allowing acetone to be produced from grain, an annual crop.

Production began with Cordite RDB (Research Department formula B), but was later switched to Cordite MD (MoDified) as wood-based acetone availability improved. The RDB variant was found to become unstable if stored for long periods.

Numbers associated with the factory were impressive: 800+ tons of ammunition produced per week; 30 miles of road; 100 miles of water main; 125 miles of railway track; 34 railway engines; water treatment plant handling 10 million gallons each day; power station for the factory and towns; telephone exchange handling 2.5 million calls; bakeries producing 14,000 meals and 13,000 loaves; laundry for 6,000 items per day. The factory employed 20,000 workers , a number which peaked at 30,000 during construction.

To accommodate the workers, the first government sponsored new town in Britain was created within the site, Gretna - the first such town to be sponsored in the 1900s, which was quickly followed by the smaller village of Eastriggs a few miles to the west. Until they were completed, the huge number of workers was accommodated in surrounding towns and villages, resulting in what would now be referred to as hot bed working. Familiar to workers on offshore oil platforms, this means organising working and sleeping into shifts, so that as one worker leaves their accommodation to start work, another is coming off shift to take their place, thereby maximising use of the available facilities.

After World War I ended, the factory was dismantled. Despite the huge size of the operation, almost nothing remains of its construction other than a few anonymous building remains and foundations. Although it covered a large area, the layout would have been relatively sparse, and construction lightweight. This would ensure sufficient distance between buildings to avoid a chain reaction if there should be an accident in one, and to minimise the effects of flying materials in the event of an explosion.

The area still supports munitions related activities, with MoD munitions depots at Eastriggs and Longtown, with the non-explosives operations at MoD Longtown scheduled for closure by mid-2009.

During the 1970s, a local historian discovered and resurrected much of the knowledge of this site, and a local exhibition dedicated to the factory has been developed to the west of the town.

Devils Porridge
Devil's Porridge was the name given to a mixture of nitroglycerin and gun-cotton used to produce cordite at the Factory.

The name was penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a 1918 article following a visit to the factory, when he wrote "The nitroglycerin on the one side and the gun-cotton on the other are kneaded into a sort of a devil's porridge" a description which came to be associated with the material produced at Moorside. The actual material was Cordite RDB (Research Department formula B), a mixture devised when acetone supplies ran low during World War I, limiting production of the more usual Cordite MD (MoDified). A high explosive, cordite is used by the military as a smokeless propellant in guns and rockets. The name follows the final appearance of the material, which is extruded into rods, similar to uncooked spaghetti, and then bundled. By varying the material geometry, the burn rate for different applications is easily controlled. See the cordite link below for a full technical description.

Sir ROBERT NEWMAN asked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether 1556 he is aware that women serving as whole-time doctors in, the Army and doing precisely the same work as their male colleagues receive neither military rank nor status, thereby being deprived of equal pay, ration, and travelling allowances, as well as a gratuity; that they have their letters censored and suffer under many disabilities owing to their not holding commissioned rank; and whether, under these circumstances, steps will be taken to grant women temporary commissioned rank, thus removing these grievances and at the same time showing a just appreciation of the services rendered by women doctors in connection with the War?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster) My hon. Friend has been misinformed. Women serving as whole-time doctors in the Army for service at home and abroad receive the same pay, ration, travelling allowances, and gratuity, as temporary commissioned officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Those serving for home duty only on temporary engagements are treated in the same way as civilian medical men similarly employed. All officers have their letters censored. It is not proposed to grant commissions to women doctors.

Sir ARTHUR SHIRLEY BENN Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider it advisable to give the same rank or commission to the women who are rendering such excellent service and are doing men's work?

Mr. FORSTER I do not quite follow my hon. Friend. I have just said that in regard to pay, ration, travelling allowances, and gratuity they do get the same.

Sir A. S. BENN I said "commission"—the same rank?

Mr. FORSTER No; not commission.

Sir R. NEWMAN Has the hon. Gentleman received any communication from the Medical Women's Federation, who have unanimously decided to press the Government by all means in their power to grant temporary rank to medical women serving in the War?

Mr. FORSTER I do not think I have seen that.

Mr. CHANCELLOR Is it sex or incompetence that prevents them getting commissions?

Geplaatst: 22 Aug 2010 9:07 Onderwerp: Women and the Military during World War One
By Professor Joanna Bourke

Women in uniform were a novelty in 1914 and yet 80,000 women served in the forces as non-combatants during World War One. Discover how one exceptional Englishwoman answered the call to arms as a member of the Serbian army.

Women combatants
By 12 August 1914, Englishwoman Flora Sandes knew that if she wanted an exciting life, she would have to fight for it. That was the date she steamed out of London, along with 36 other eager nurses, bound for Serbia. Within 18 months, during the great retreat to Albania, she had exchanged bandages for guns. She insisted on acting as a soldier, and being treated as such; therefore, like male combatants, she cared for the wounded, but only 'between shots'. She curtly informed one correspondent on 10 November 1916 that if people thought she ought to be a nurse instead of a soldier, they should be told that 'we have Red Cross men for first aid'. Her martial valour during World War One was recognised in June 1919 when a special Serbian Act of Parliament made her the first woman to be commissioned in the Serbian Army.

World War I saw the commitment of large numbers of women employed as nurses and other medical workers. They served in many different places, and were engaged in many different types of nursing. What can we learn about these women’s experiences?
On the home front countless women took on voluntary comfort and fundraising roles to support the troops.
However, not all women’s roles on the home front were so unifying, as tensions developed over some patriotic, propaganda and political roles undertaken by women.

Investigations:
1 What were the experiences of nurses and other medical workers during the war?
2 How were women involved in the war on the home front? Was this involvement unifying or divisive?
3 What were the continuing impacts of war after 1918?

Class, Gender, and English Women’s Sport, c. 1890-1914Kathleen E. McCrone
Department of History University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

During the second half of the nineteenth century the complicated processes
of industrialization and urbanization produced a revolution in leisure and
recreation of which sport was the most spectacular aspect. This revolution had
profound implications for social control, and in it, as in society at large, class
and gender were important variables reflecting potent power relationships.
Sport, as a number of historians have demonstrated, was a particularly useful
means of reinforcing distinctions of class, social standing, and territory, and
also of gender. In all classes the patterns of Victorian sport reflected clearly the
different roles and privileges historically ascribed to the sexes.1
Prior to 1914 women and girls from almost all sections of English society
took part in various forms of calisthenics and gymnastics. But the female
dimension of the sporting revolution was primarily middle-class, for it was
women of the middle ranks whose sporting consciousness was awakened first
by educational and recreational experiences, who had the free time and financial
means participation required, and who, despite numerous impediments
related to the patriarchal nature of social relations and restrictive perceptions
of femininity, began to ‘play the game’ by the thousands. In comparison
women of the working classes were much less involved, because the requisite
schooling, money, and time for leisure activities were lacking, and because of
their subservient relationships with men of their own class and with women of
higher classes. There are, however, important lower-class aspects of the history
of women and sport which merit scrutiny, for working-class women’s
sport played a role in the formation and reformation of class and gender
relationships.

http://forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopic.php?t=24568_________________
"A grand canyon has opened up in our world, the fissure, the crack, grows wider every day. Neither on each side can hear a word that the other shrieks and nor do they want to."
-Stephen Fry on political correctness.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30575/30575-h/30575-h.htm_________________
"A grand canyon has opened up in our world, the fissure, the crack, grows wider every day. Neither on each side can hear a word that the other shrieks and nor do they want to."
-Stephen Fry on political correctness.

WOMEN are now finding employment
with the Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation,
a new feature at the factory
made necessary by the frequent withdrawal
of men for military service and
by the company's policy that production
shall ' not be lessened. Twenty-five
women are already at work. The work
itself is clean, light, and interesting. The
chief difficulty, a woman's lack of familiarity
with machines, is overcome by
a short course of instruction by experienced
workmen; and thus far the learners
have found little trouble in mastering
the craft sufficiently for present purposes,
more particularly work on lathes
and at drill presses. Thus women are
everywhere realizing their obligation and
bearing their share in new labors incident
to the war.

The role of women in Italy during World War I. When Italy entered World War I on May 24, 1915, it fought the Austrians and Germans in the mountainous region of the southern Tyrol and along the Isonzo River. Despite the emigration of more than 2.5 million in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Italy mobilized more than 5 million of its nearly 9 million men between the ages of 18 and 65.

Intellectual middle-class women were among those who vociferously advocated Italian intervention in the war as early as the autumn of 1914. The Fede nuova (New Faith) was a review devoted to promulgating the principles of Giuseppe Mazzini, the apostle of Italian nationalism, and had as its president Signora Alvina Al-bini Tondi. Along with Virginia Pincellotti Pace, a journalist and poet, and Professor Theresa Labriola of the University of Rome, Tondi formed the National Committee for Italian Intervention. In December 1917, it called on Italian women to support the war effort in any way they could. Its appeal was echoed by the National Woman Suffrage Federation.

The women of Italy were called on to support the war effort in many ways. Yet female workers in the armaments factories and other war industries were, in comparison to their allies, appallingly paid and labored under horrible conditions. As industrial cities grew to accommodate the influx of workers, overcrowding became a problem. Food shortages eventually led to strikes, often fronted by women, for whom the threat to send strikers to the front held no real terror. Peasant women, on the other hand, whose lives were traditionally harsh, were actually less affected by the food shortages that plagued their urban sisters. While they had to take up the work their men left behind including public transactions, many peasant families benefited from the increased inflation that allowed them to pay off their debts to absentee landowners. Women in Perugia were praised for yielding a better harvest in 1916—1917 than had been reaped in the preceding year.

Women also went to work in offices, asylums, and hospitals. They were employed as railroad ticket agents, street sweepers, conductors on street cars, and telegraph operators. The Italian gas mask was said to have been devised by a woman from Bologna. In Verona, 80 refugee women in workrooms and 1,000 women in their homes produced more than 19,000 field tents and 125,000 articles of clothing for soldiers (Wannamaker 1923, 35). One workroom in Milan sent 43,000 garments to the front in the first 2 years (Wannamaker 1923, 31). In Palermo, Messina, and Como, female telephone operators alternated their regular work with making garments.

Women of the middle and upper classes organized voluntary work. The Citizen Relief Committees dealt with various needs from soldiers’ clothes to the distribution of milk to needy children. The first state provisions for the war needy were instituted in May 1915 for the families of recalled servicemen and were later extended to all draftees.

The Central Bureau of News was established by Countess Lina Cavazza in Bologna in May 1915 and ultimately employed 25,000 women who sent messages from the wounded soldiers to their families (Wannamaker 1923, 36). These aristocratic women visitors also delivered sweets and collected information for the News Bureau. The Ufficio Notizie Militari (Office of Military News) was another female-managed conduit for the interchange and distribution of news between soldiers and their families. Other women managed rest houses and canteens for soldiers. One, the Casa del Soldato (Soldiers’ Home) in Genoa, was founded and maintained exclusively by the women’s association Pro Patria.

The professional nurse was a new phenomenon in Italy, the first school for training opening only in 1908. Like women elsewhere, however, Italian women were eager to enroll once war was declared. In one Milan school, the enrollment was 54 in 1913-1914 but 704 in 1914-1915. By 1917, the Red Cross in Italy had 10,000 nurses, 600 of whom served in the war zone. Nine died of disease contracted during their service, and it was reported in one contemporary memoir that 15 Italian nurses had volunteered to permit grafts from their skin for the treatment of wounded men (Wannamaker 1923, 39).

In the mountainous terrain of the Italian front, women were essential in the work of clearing the roads of snow and in carrying materials and food to the soldiers. They also transported concrete and wire for the trenches. Some were decorated for their bravery. Maria Brighenti was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor for having nursed the wounded during a siege at Tarhuna in July 1915. Her remains were not found until 1924. Maria Boso was awarded the Silver Medal of Civic Virtue for having helped her soldier brother in the Austrian army escape to Italy. She was captured by the Austrians and died in prison.

The thousands of ordinary widows and grieving mothers were venerated in national mourning organized by the patriotic Associazione Madri e Vedove dei Caduti in Guerra (Association of Mothers and Widows of the Fallen), founded in Milan in 1917. The new woman, who may have felt energized by the possibilities of wartime employment, was, by contrast, subject to a conservative backlash. New opportunities, experienced mainly by urban middle-class women, were short-lived.

"The myth of female inferiority has always been rooted in the contention that men die for their country but women do not"

Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Youth', a classic of the Great War, has been described as the war book of the women of England. This prescient and powerful essay, written in 1968, two years before her death, charts how the war sparked the feminist revolution

Soon after seeing Journey's End, I began to ask myself: Why should these young men have the war to themselves? Didn't women have their war as well? They weren't all, as these men make them out to be, only suffering wives and mothers, or callous parasites, or mercenary prostitutes. Does no one remember the women who began their war service with such high ideals or how grimly they carried on when that flaming faith had crumbled into the grey ashes of disillusion? Who will write the epic of the women who went to the war, and came back leaving the bones of their men in the trampled fields of France?

In pictures: Women at war
Churchill's Wizards by Nicholas Rankin
Kitchener's Last Volunteer
Could I, who had done nothing important yet, carry through such a massive undertaking? With scientific precision, I studied the memoirs of Blunden, Sassoon, and Graves. Surely, I thought, my story is as interesting as theirs. Besides, I see things other than they have seen, and some of the things they perceived, I see differently. A new type of autobiography was coming into fashion, which would represent the ordinary people of the world upon whom wars were imposed. I wanted to make my own story as truthful as history but as readable as fiction, and in it I intended to speak, not for those in high places, but for my own generation of obscure young women.

A woman could perceive the picture as clearly as a man - perhaps more clearly, owing to the inevitably greater detachment which a woman's wartime insignificance gave her. Midway between the beginning and end of the war I had written to my brother in the trenches about the quality of our age. He was then on the Italian Front and, though only 21, was the kind of correspondent who understands everything. Such individuals are so rare that I have missed him all my life.

About the summer of 1917 I wrote to him: "I think that 'Before' and 'After' this war will make the same kind of division in human history as 'BC' and 'AD'." At the time this seemed an extravagant and even absurd assessment, but after half a century it does not seem to me that I was so far wrong in my estimate of that tremendous perspective.

The quality of the two titanic revolutions was, of course, quite different. The transition from the pagan to the Christian world meant a vast spiritual change affecting all human lives from the first century onward. The changes created by the events of 1914 and the years immediately afterward were social and political, but they, too, were apocalyptic and fundamental. Mankind was never the same again after 1914, any more than it was ever the same again after the Crucifixion. Only those who recall, however dimly, the vanishing sunset splendour of the final Victorian years can estimate in their personal histories the quality of the transformation which the events of 1914 created for the much battered human race.

I have never been able to feel that September 3, 1939, presented a comparable cataclysm to that of August 4, 1914. The second date had been long foreseen, and though it heralded more and worse disasters which were to come closer to the comfortable British people than the cross-Channel terrors of the First World War, it lacked the same quality of shock.

The "awful face of duty" sent the generation which had known no major war since their grandparents had fought in the Crimea into the interminable miles of trenches which stretched from the Ardennes to the North Sea, or took them in the ships, great and small, which when they were sunk carried hundreds of young men into a cold, anonymous grave without hope of rescue or the least understanding of the issue for which they had sacrificed their lives.

They belonged to a sheltered human vintage for which occasional disasters, such as the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, were isolated reminders that tragedy existed. But no one, before 1914, expected it to come nearer, for smooth events had established the conviction that human happiness was normal and disaster exceptional. To us, with our cheerful confidence in the benignity of fate, war was something remote, unimaginable, its monstrous destructions safely shut up, like the Black Death and the Great Fire, between the covers of history books.

What really mattered were the absorbing incidents of our private lives - our careers, ambitions, friendships, and love affairs. And now public issues and private lives had become bewilderingly inseparable. Yet if the whole comfortable generation had felt sheltered and secure, its women seemed to be especially cut off from reality. Their subservience was not a matter for discussion except by a handful of wild fanatics who had begun to make extravagant claims to equality and opportunity.

The inferiority of women was accepted as part of the natural order of creation. The suffragettes, to the amusement of the unthinking public, began to make their vehement demands, less than a decade before the world changed forever.

The wearing anxiety of waiting for letters probably made all noncombatants feel more distracted than anything else in that sustained nightmare. Even when the letters came, they were at least four days old; the writers after sending them would have had time to die many times. This particular form of painful suspense began for me when Roland Leighton [who was to become her fiancé] went to the Front as a boy barely 20 in March 1915 and ended for me only in June 1918, when my brother's death after that of Roland and our two dearest friends left me with no one else for whom to feel anxiety.

During the periods of waiting, especially when the newspapers reported the imminence of a "great push", ordinary household sounds became a torment. The striking of a clock, marking off each hour of dread, broke into the immobility of tension with the shattering effect of a thunderclap. Every ring at the bell suggested a telegram, the only method of conveying urgent news before the days of radio and television; every telephone call implied a long-distance message giving bad news.

It is not surprising that many women developed an anxiety neurosis which lasted until the end of their lives. To this constant dread was added, as the end of the fighting moved ever onward into an incalculable future, a new fear that the war would come between the men at the front and the women who loved them. Between 1914 and 1919 the war always did, putting a barrier of indescribable experience between the two sexes, thrusting horror deeper and deeper inward, linking the dread of spiritual death to the apprehension of physical disaster.

When one of two dear friends was blinded at Arras in 1917 and sent to England to die in a London military hospital, I went to his funeral in Sussex, where his family lived. More bitter even than the sorrow of his death was my acute consciousness of England's uncomprehending remoteness from the tragic, profound freemasonry which united the men and, very rarely, the women who accepted death together overseas. The women who served or only waited in the Second World War, though they experienced fresh horrors, were at least spared this fear of estrangement due to ignorance, for in this second onslaught of fate men and women alike shared the perils that threatened both sexes.

The myth of female inferiority has always been rooted in the contention that men die for their country but women do not. Now neither sex, except in very primitive societies, can do this with any expectation that their efforts will be effective against the colossal amoralities of dominant science.

The war was often said to be responsible for the immediate postwar feminist reforms in Britain, and indeed it helped, in the sense that it did give women the opportunity to show that they could do what they had long claimed. These results would not, however, have achieved their purpose without the preliminary years of feminist spadework, ending in the spectacular protests of the suffragettes, who put the women's cause on the map.

But in a much deeper sense the two wars made the sexes equal, not merely because women proved that they could do the work of men (as they did), but because they could, and did, die the deaths of men. Thus, they shared the "supreme sacrifice", which made them equals in death as in life.

•'Because You Died: Poetry and Prose of the First World War and After', by Vera Brittain (Little, Brown), is available from Telegraph Books for £9.99 + 99p p&p. To order, call 0870 428 4112 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk

LAST weekend we solemnly remembered the fallen, those who sacrificed their precious lives in the cause of liberty.
But in both world wars there were many who did not belong to the Armed Forces but who, nonetheless, did their bit for their country.

In World War One the ladies of Tamworth were as worthy and valiant as any in the land.

On August 31, 1914, four weeks after Britain declared war on Germany, a special meeting of Tamworth's branch of the Women's Liberal Association was called. The theme was 'Women's Work in Wartime'.

A statement issued at the conclusion of the meeting read: 'We, the members of the Women's Liberal Association, in view of the immediate and urgent need for practical effort on the part of all women, in this hour of national peril, pledge ourselves to assist in every way in alleviating the sorrow and suffering which must come to our land through the war, and irrespective of political party, religious creeds or social distinctions, unite ourselves in working for our soldiers and for the common good of all. Therefore, this branch of the Women's Liberal Association is dissolved for the time of war'.

A committee was formed and a new organisation named 'The Tamworth Ladies' Working League' was founded.
Mrs Felix Hamel was elected President and a fund was given a kick start with a loan of 30 shillings (£1.50) from the kitty of the defunct Liberal Association, and from generous contributions by several of the members.
The money was soon spent on flannel, to make shirts.
A certain Mrs Lowe donated a large amount of knitting wool to make socks.
The League had been established only a short while when applications for clothing began coming in from soldiers at the 'front'.

Interest in the League increased and support in the shape of gifts and money increased accordingly.
Even with these benefits the funds were inadequate and more money had to be raised to meet the demands.

The ladies convened their meetings every Monday at the Baths and Institute in Church Street, having been given permission by the Education Committee of Tamworth Co-operative Society.

On Christmas Day, 1914, lads belonging to Tamworth Territorials, based in Saffron Walden, received a hamper full of seasonal cheer. The contents included clothing, mufflers and 50 pairs of pants, along with tobacco and plum puddings.
It prompted their Captain to write a letter of appreciation, saying how successful Christmas had been and how the plum puddings had complimented a traditional Christmas dinner.

The owners of Tamworth's Grand and Palace cinemas, both situated in George Street, allowed the League to use their premises to stage matinees and concerts, which boosted the collections immeasurably.
One matinee, held at the Grand, raised £50 which was forwarded to the Serbian Relief Committee.

Another highly successful venture occurred on August Bank Holiday in 1915 when a Dutch Market – jointly organised by the League and the Red Cross Society – was held on the Castle Grounds.
They made a profit of £144, which was shared equally between the two organisations.
A street collection in 1916 made £63.

As time went by the League received donations from clubs, institutions, colliery relief funds and private individuals throughout the district.
This allowed them to get on with the real work, making and parcelling the gifts to send to the soldiers and sailors.

The casualties returning from various places across Europe were so many that hospitals in every part of the country were full to overflowing.
A military hospital was set up at Whittington Barracks and the Ladies' League resolved to visit the patients and distribute gifts of fruit, cakes, pastries, cigarettes and tobacco on a weekly basis.
A good many 'Tommies' in the hospitals never received visits from their families as the distance was too great – public transport in rural parts was in its infancy and the motor car was exclusively for the rich.
The visits of the ladies were looked forward to by these unfortunates, even more than the gifts.
A convalescent hospital built at Bolehall received similar visits and gifts from the ladies who felt proud and privileged to be of service.

Another imaginative idea resulted in the ladies arranging musical concerts in the Castle Grounds and Town Hall for the walking wounded. They were very popular and well attended.

Letters of appreciation were received from wherever in the world Tamworth lads were billeted. These letters were cherished greatly by the ladies as they were moral boosting and inspirational.
More volunteers joined the cause and everyone worked hard to ensure that all requests made to the League were fulfilled.

In December 1916 it was brought to the attention of the ladies that Tamworth Railway Station – an important junction of two main lines – was often packed with servicemen, cold and hungry, waiting for their train connections.
The Stationmaster gave the ladies permission to set up a buffet on the platform and the manager of the local gas company had part of the Waiting Room converted into a kitchen, complete with gas stove and boiler, free of charge.

As overcrowded trains pulled into the station, Servicemen of all ranks clamoured for refreshments made available by the ladies.
Blankets, rugs and cushions were supplied to those who had to wait long periods for their connections.

When the cessation of hostilities was finally announced on November 4, 1918, the ladies continued to provide their valuable service until March, 1919, four months after the end of the war, when the last of the repatriated soldiers passed through Tamworth Railway Station.
The place had gained national fame, as practically every Serviceman in the country knew about the bountiful refreshments that were available for a nominal fee.

The total monies received for the food and drink amounted to £2,989, whilst the expenditure from the League's funds was £3,320, including crockery and catering utensils (no such thing as a plastic cup in those days).

After the Great War Mrs Hamel was widely praised for her hard work and generosity, for she was the driving force behind the scheme.
Without her the Tamworth Ladies' Working League may never have existed – it was a darned good job that it did!

Bertha Stevenson, known as Betty, was born in York on 3 September
1896 and lived in Harrogate. She was killed in 1918 while working for the
Y.M.C.A. in France. In 1920 her parents wrote and published an account
of Betty’s wartime experiences, drawing on her diaries and letters home.

Early in January 1916 one of Betty Stevenson’s aunts went to France to
manage a Y.M.C.A. Canteen. At 19 she was considered too young to go,
but Betty was very anxious to join her. She finally started off to France,
escorted by her father, on Friday 11 February 1916. She lived with her
aunt in a small hotel on the Boulevard Magenta in Paris and began work
at the St Dennis Canteen

Betty wrote to her mother telling her how much she was enjoying
herself:

ÂI do think Paris is too lovely for words·better even than Brussels, but I
expect thatÊs because IÊve got something real to do. IÊve just the
comfortable time to lounge and shop and be lazy in, and just the right time
to work in⁄It is lovely.Ê

Betty’s mother, Grace, joined her at the end of March 1916. In the book
Grace describes their work:

Geplaatst: 06 Apr 2014 19:33 Onderwerp: What did WWI really do for women?

Quote:

What did WWI really do for women?

War begins and women get to work

At the outbreak of World War One, life for Britain’s women was mainly tied to a life of domesticity, their places still largely in the home. Some, like the Suffragettes, were campaigning vocally for change, but the glass ceiling remained at ground level. Now, as Britain's men headed abroad to fight, women took their place en masse in factories, shops and offices across the country. And everything had the potential to change.

What was life like for the hard-working women who kept wartime Britain going? And, having proved they were a match for the demands of the wartime economy, were their efforts rewarded with better rights and greater freedom when peace returned?

By Gemma Lawrence, Web Team
Of all the roles women took on during the First World War their work in munitions factories was probably the most vital. Without the bullets and shells they produced the British Army couldn't have carried on fighting.

This archive film, A Day In The Life Of A Munitions Worker, was made in 1917 at the Chilwell Arms Factory in Nottinghmashire. The clips show some of the tasks a female munitions worker would have had to do while working in the factories. The film also shows the workers having a basic medical inspection. It was in the factory owner's interest to ensure their workforce remained healthy. However, working in the factories could be unpleasant, uncomfortable and often very dangerous. The female workers, nicknamed 'munitionettes', had limited protection against the toxic chemicals they had to use. Over 200 women lost their lives through accidents, poisoning from handling chemical explosives or explosions.

'Munitionettes' were only employed during the war. The government negotiated with the trade unions to ensure that when the war ended the women would leave and their jobs would once again be filled by men.